The subject matter herein relates generally to connector systems with rigid-flex circuit connectors.
Some known connectors are used to route high speed signals from an electronic component, such as a microprocessor or other processing unit, along a conductive path to input/output (I/O) connector, for example. One option is to route data signals through a motherboard or other printed circuit board (PCB) to which the microprocessor is mounted. However, as data speeds and the density of electronics on a motherboard increase, routing high speed signals through the motherboard may result in a reduced signal transfer performance as compared to routing the high speed signals along another signal path that is separate from the motherboard. For example, the motherboard may transmit data signals slower and/or with more signal degradation than an auxiliary circuit device, such as a flex film, a flex PCB, or a rigid PCB.
Current technology uses multiple connection interfaces to form such a conductive path from a microprocessor, for example, through an auxiliary circuit device. Contact portions of the microprocessor may engage electrical contacts held in a housing or socket, where the electrical contacts engage the microprocessor along a top side of the housing. An opposite bottom side of the housing may include a ball grid array that electrically connects the electrical contacts to the auxiliary circuit device, which extends between the housing and the I/O connector, for example, at the distal end of the conductive signal path. The ball grid array is an array of solder balls that are soldered to electrical conductors of the auxiliary circuit device. Ball grid arrays have known manufacturing and signal integrity issues. For example, from a manufacturing standpoint it is difficult to align the solder balls with both the electrical contacts in the housing and the electrical conductors of the auxiliary circuit device, and to maintain the solder balls in proper alignment during the soldering process. The solder balls may be prone to melting at different rates and into different shapes. For example, one solder ball that is flatter in shape than another solder ball may risk formation of a gap between the solder ball and either the housing or the auxiliary circuit device, such that the solder ball fails to form a conductive path between the corresponding electrical contact and electrical conductor. Moreover, from a signal integrity standpoint, the solder balls introduce an impedance discontinuity along the conductive signal path since the solder balls may have significantly different impedance and/or other characteristics relative to the electrical contacts in the housing and/or the electrical conductors in the auxiliary circuit device. The impedance discontinuity may cause attenuation, standing waves, distortion, and the like since a portion of the signals may be reflected back towards the source.